Viktor Orbán, Europe’s most pro-Russia leader, arrived in Moscow on Friday for talks with Vladimir Putin, days after making his first visit to Kyiv, as the Hungarian prime minister attempts to position himself as a peace broker between Russia and Ukraine.
Orbán’s trip to Moscow drew strong rebukes from fellow EU leaders and came in the week that Hungary took over the rotating EU presidency until the end of the year.
The Kremlin published a short clip showing Putin and Orbán meeting at the Kremlin.
Orbán published a photograph on social media of his arrival in Moscow earlier in the day with the caption: “The peace mission continues. Second stop: Moscow.”
Brussels was quick to denounce the visit, saying Orbán did not speak for the EU and had “not received any mandate from the EU Council to visit Moscow”.
“Prime minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to Moscow takes place, exclusively, in the framework of the bilateral relations between Hungary and Russia … The Hungarian prime minister is thus not representing the EU in any form,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, wrote in a statement.
Hungary has been at odds with other western countries over Orbán’s continued cultivation of close ties to Russia and refusal to send arms to Ukraine. Budapest’s foreign minister called plans to help the country a “crazy mission” in May.
Orbán acknowledged before his unannounced trip to Moscow that he was not representing the EU, signalling his personal ambition to find a solution to the 28-month war.
“You cannot make peace from a comfortable armchair in Brussels. Even if the rotating EU presidency has no mandate to negotiate on behalf of the EU, we cannot sit back and wait for the war to miraculously end,” he told Hungary’s public radio broadcaster Kossuth.
During his visit to Kyiv on Tuesday, Orbán said he had asked Volodymyr Zelenskiy to consider a quick ceasefire that could accelerate peace talks.
Both Zelenskiy and Putin swiftly rejected Orbán’s call for a ceasefire, with the Ukrainian leader saying his country “cannot just trust Putin in principle”.
“It is important that Hungary recognises that Russia is an aggressor,” he said in an interview after Orbán’s visit.
Ukrainians fear that without hard security guarantees, such as Nato membership, a ceasefire would simply allow Russia to regroup and attack again in the future.
Putin said Russia could not agree to a ceasefire “because it is not sure of Kyiv’s reciprocal actions”.
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Putin issued a new ultimatum last month to end the war, demanding Kyiv cede more land, withdraw troops deeper inside its own country and drop its Nato bid.
The terms appear to be a non-starter for Ukraine and its western allies, as Putin staked out a maximalist position that included claims on land that Russia has “annexed” without holding under its military control.
Orbán’s visit is the first by an EU leader to Russia since the Austrian chancellor, Karl Nehammer, made a fruitless effort to negotiate an end to Russia’s invasion in April 2022.
Friday’s trip will cause further anxiety in Brussels and in EU member states, where many are already horrified that a leader who they feel has done everything to undermine European unity and the rule of law in recent years is now the bloc’s main representative for the next six months.
Citing Orbán, who said the trip would “serve as an important tool in making the first step towards peace”, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on social media: “The question is in whose hands this tool is.”
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, wrote on X: “Appeasement will not stop Putin. Only unity and determination will pave the path to a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”